Neil Cobb APMP Fellow
Writing Business Bids & Proposals For Dummies®
Writing Business Bids & Proposals For Dummies®
Published by: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, www.wiley.com
This edition first published 2016
© 2016 by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Chichester, West Sussex
Registered Office
John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, United Kingdom
For details of our global editorial offices, for customer services and for information about how to apply for permission to reuse the copyright material in this book, please see our website at www.wiley.com.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, without the permission of this publisher.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book are trade names, service marks, trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publisher is not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book.
LIMIT OF LIABILITY/DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTY: WHILE THE PUBLISHER AND AUTHOR HAVE USED THEIR BEST EFFORTS IN PREPARING THIS BOOK, THEY MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES WITH RESPECT TO THE ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF THE CONTENTS OF THIS BOOK AND SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. IT IS SOLD ON THE UNDERSTANDING THAT THE PUBLISHER IS NOT ENGAGED IN RENDERING PROFESSIONAL SERVICES AND NEITHER THE PUBLISHER NOR THE AUTHOR SHALL BE LIABLE FOR DAMAGES ARISING HEREFROM. IF PROFESSIONAL ADVICE OR OTHER EXPERT ASSISTANCE IS REQUIRED, THE SERVICES OF A COMPETENT PROFESSIONAL SHOULD BE SOUGHT.
For general information on our other products and services, please contact our Customer Care Department within the U.S. at 877-762-2974, outside the U.S. at 317-572-3993, or fax 317-572-4002. For technical support, please visit www.wiley.com/techsupport.
Wiley publishes in a variety of print and electronic formats and by print-on-demand. Some material included with standard print versions of this book may not be included in e-books or in print-on-demand. If this book refers to media such as a CD or DVD that is not included in the version you purchased, you may download this material at http://booksupport.wiley.com. For more information about Wiley products, visit www.wiley.com.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016940591
ISBN 978-1-119-17432-5 (pbk); ISBN 978-1-119-17433-2 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-119-17436-3 (ebk)
Introduction
This may come as a bit of a surprise to you, but some people write proposals for a living and enjoy it.
We don’t mean people who have to write proposals to sell their products and services as an obligatory part of their roles as business owners, salespeople, and entrepreneurs. We mean people who write proposals as their profession – it’s their primary role. They delight in this intricate, detail-oriented, thought-provoking work. They toil for businesses big and small, and all they do all day (and all night at times) is write proposals. Some write proposals that are a handful of pages, while others write proposals with hundreds of pages in multiple volumes. Some write them pretty much on their own, while others coordinate the efforts of anywhere from a couple of specialists to hundreds on a single deal. They propose to every kind of business and government entity you can imagine, because most publicly owned or regulated enterprises buy goods and services through proposals.
It may not matter to you personally, but proposal writing is a profession – a growing and increasingly important one. It’s an essential part of a broader group of business development professionals who plan and execute strategies for businesses to obtain new customers. Proposal writers have a professional organization – the Association of Proposal Management Professionals (APMP) – whose best practices are the foundation for this book. This group of more than 7,500 practitioners from around the world knows that proposal writing is a skill you can learn, practice, and master, and, ultimately, prove your mastery of through a professional certification process.
Here’s what does matter to you: Writing Business Bids & Proposals For Dummies is your easiest and best ticket for finding out what these professional proposal writers know and for applying it to your own business. You have in your hands the collected knowledge and skills of the professional proposal writer – without having to be one.
This book is primarily for small- to medium-size business owners, first-time proposal writers in medium-size companies, or sales representatives who need to represent their companies in the best light possible. A written proposal, whether it’s delivered in print or digital format, is still one of the most common, personal, and effective ways to win business, even in this age of near-instant online communications, social media marketing, and live-action websites.
Proposal writers have an old saying: “The best proposal won’t win the business outright, but a bad one will certainly lose it.” This means that a proposal doesn’t work in a vacuum. Developing a successful business is a complex and difficult process, with lots of interworking parts. You have to have useful and reliable products, dedicated people providing a dependable service, and innovative thinking that can solve unique problems. But even if you have the best products, the best people, and the best service record of anyone in your industry, if you can’t express those advantages clearly and persuasively in terms that truly mean something to your customers, your business will never be as successful as it can be.
If you adopt the concepts, implement the processes, practice the techniques, and adapt the tools in this book to meet your unique needs, you’ll improve the way your business captures new customers and communicates with existing ones. This book can help you to
❯❯ Establish a process for finding and assessing business opportunities.
❯❯ Create repeatable plans for responding to opportunities.
❯❯ Understand your customer’s business and its needs.
❯❯ Assess your and your competitors’ strengths and weaknesses.
❯❯ Build and manage teams to develop compelling proposals.
After you have a process and the required resources in place, this book can guide you to
❯❯ Structure your proposals in proven, effective ways.
❯❯ Write them in the clearest and most compelling terms.
❯❯ Design them for maximum readability and visual impression.
❯❯ Create practices for doing a better job each time.
We
